The May 24, 1993 PKK ambush on Turkish soldiers was carried out against unarmed Turkish military recruits on the Elazığ

Elazig

Elâzığ is a city in Eastern Anatolia, Turkey and the seat of Elâzığ Province. It has a population of331,479 according to the 2010 census, and the plain on which the city extends has an altitude of 1067 metres....

-Bingöl

Bingöl

Bingöl is a city in Eastern Turkey. It is also known as Çabakcur , which means violent water in Armenian. It is surrounded by mountains and a large number of glacier lakes, hence the name . Lately, the town has become a popular tourist destination...

 highway, killing 33 off-duty Turkish soldiers and 5 civilians and breaking the first ever PKK cease-fire with the Turkish government. The attack had been ordered by Şemdin Sakık and according to Abdullah Ocalan's testimony in 1999, it was carried out by a regional PKK commander.

Background

In late 1991, Turkish President Turgut Özal

Turgut Özal

Halil Turgut Özal was Prime Minister of Turkey and President of Turkey . As Prime Minister, he transformed the economy of Turkey by paving the way for the privatization of many state enterprises.-Early life and career:...

 attempted to establish dialogue with the PKK. He had said a the idea of a federation could be discussed and a Kurdish language

Kurdish language

Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....

TV channel could be opened. He also passed a bill, partially unbanning the use of the Kurdish language. In response the PKK declared a cease-fire on March 20, 1993. However, after Turgut Özal's death on April 17, 1993, the government's pace in meeting the PKK's political demands were largely halted and the PKK decided to revert back to violence, breaking their cease-fire by launching the May 24 attack.

The attack

On May 24, 1993 over 150 PKK militants, coming from the South-Eastern mountains blocked the Elazığ-Bingöl highway, stopping several busses transferring unarmed Turkish soldiers in civilian clothing and dragged 33 soldiers and 5 civilians from their vehicles and executed them. Some 22 soldiers were briefly captured by the PKK, before being freed by Turkish rescue operations. The military was criticized for the fact that the soldiers were unarmed and there were no units protecting them.

Aftermath

The attack broke the PKK's cease-fire with the Turkish government and in response to this, the Turkish military intensified it's anti-insurgency operations against the PKK during the following months. A total of 92 Turkish security forces, 203 Kurdish rebels and 29 civilians were killed during anti-insurgency operations in May and June, an additional 120 Kurds were arrested during these operations.